Ragnhild Melzi

Ragnhild Melzi is Americas Society/Council of the Americas’ vice president of Public Policy Programs and Corporate Relations. She provides leadership for the organizations’ international programming, which attracts top government officials, global business leaders, and prominent policy analysts to confront matters of critical hemispheric importance at discussions that take place across the Americas. Randy has extensive experience in Latin American corporate finance and wealth management. At MHT/Chemical/Chase/JPMorgan she originated leveraged finance transactions for private equity sponsors; led large syndicated loans and bond offerings for corporations, banks, and government agencies in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina; and worked on corporate restructurings. Randy also managed the private banking group at Banco Continental de Panama (now Banco General), and worked in the private banking divisions of Citibank, HSBC, and JPMorgan. She holds an MBA and a BA from Cornell University and a Maitrise en Administration et Gestion from the Universite Catholique de Louvain. Born in Peru, she grew up in the Panama Canal Zone. Randy is a native speaker of English and Spanish, and is fluent in French.

What's next for the Pacific Alliance? The presidents of Chile and Colombia shared their perspectives along with the minister of foreign commerce and tourism of Peru and Mexico's secretary of foreign affairs at a panel on September 20 during UN General Assembly week in New York. Attracting more foreign direct investment is a priority, said President Michelle Bachelet, as investment flows to Latin America are down since 2011. Even still, the bloc's four countries are the ones recording the most economic growth in the region, indicating their "huge potential," added Colombia's Juan Manuel Santos.

The Pacific Alliance represents 39 percent of the region's GDP and 54 percent of its global trade. Now, it's time to look outside the bloc, said Mexico's Foreign Affairs Secretary Luis Videgaray. In June, the Pacific Alliance approved the first group of associate member countries with which the bloc will begin negotiating a free-trade agreement: Autralia, Canada, New Zeland, and Singapore. There was so much interest, "It was practically a beauty contest," said Videgaray.